The present invention relates to improvements in anesthesia masks and ventilation masks.
During surgery a patient usually is placed under anesthesia. The most common delivery system consists of canisters containing anesthesia gases and oxygen, a system of regulating the gas flow and the patient's breathing, and a device ensuring the potency of the patient's airway for breathing, oxygenation and the delivery of the anesthetic gas mixture. A ventilation mask is used to provide oxygen to the patient either during emergency and/or elective airway management, which includes but is not limited to: before a patient is anesthetized for surgery while the patient is sedated during the surgery or procedure; while the patient is recovering from anesthesia; after the patient has recovered from anesthesia; and during any event where a patient requires supplemental oxygen. However, conventional ventilation masks are less then ideal.
Moreover, situations may arise during surgery that require rapid intubation of a patient. Full face masks, i.e. masks covering both the nose and mouth of a patient are problematic in emergency situations since a mask must be removed to uncover the mouth of a patient for intubation. However, removing the mask also removes oxygen support.
In our co-pending PCT Application Serial Nos. PCT/US2014/44934, PCT/US2015/034277 and PCT/US2015/044341 (hereinafter the '934, '277 and '341 PCT applications), we provide improved ventilation/anesthesia masks that overcome the aforesaid and other problems with the prior art by providing, in one aspect, a combination mask comprising a nasal portion or mask and an oral portion or mask defining respectively a nasal chamber and an oral chamber, detachably connected to one another wherein the nasal mask may be used separately or connected to the oral mask as a combination nasal/oral mask. We also provide a nasal mask with one or more ports, and various strap systems for holding the mask on a patient's face. We also provide a nasal only mask with one or more sensors for sensing end-tidal CO2 or other gases, and for scavenging gases. See our co-pending PCT Application Serial No. PCT/US16/037070 (hereafter the '070 PCT application). Such combination nasal/oral masks and nasal only masks are available commercially from Revolutionary Medical Devices, Inc. of Tucson, Ariz., under the trademark SuperNO2VA®.